Patience. Change. Control
Sometimes, change is thrust upon you. That happened to me this week.
In addition to running the best darn bi-weekly newsletter this side of the Mississippi, I also run a burgeoning data analytics and AI workflow business - Rad Consultants ('yes Chris, I know").
I was engaged for a 6-month project by a company recently but after 7 weeks, I think I was just too productive and they said "actually, we ran out of stuff for you."
"Hmmm...shiiiiiIIIIII expected this."
I expected it because my inbox wasn't exactly full. I expected it because the initiatives I was pushing were very slow to gain any traction. I expected it because I have built myself in the last 3 years since I found this philosophy to expect it. To expect the bad that can happen.
"Not 'this is not so bad', instead 'I can make this good.'"
I feel like I employ that quote every other newsletter.
In entrepreneurship, there is a balance, a Temperance if you will, between patience and control. To have someone find what you do valuable, they need to trust you. And trust can't be built in a day. But you want to make that money immediately. But you won't. So be patient. And while you are being patient with Bob, go start earning the trust of Sally.
So that company that engaged me that has just horrible workforce planning (just sayin'!) allowed me to go earn some more trust. Create some new value. Spend time learning new skills and use cases for those skills. Grab control. Don't be all 'patience'. I can make this good. Ya gotta be empowered by the things you do control. And take action.
What are you making good?
Learn how to press forward precisely when everyone around you sees disaster. A crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before.
— Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way
Is there a storm any greater than the storm of forceful impressions that can put reason to flight? What is a real storm except just another impression? Put away the fear of death, and however much thunder and lightning you have to face, you will find the mind capable of remaining calm and composed regardless.
— Epictetus, Discourses & Selected Writings
The outcome of violent anger is a mental raving, and therefore anger is to be avoided – Not for the sake of moderation, but for the sake of sanity.
— Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
Rads Take
The quotes conspire again to build off of each other. Disaster. Storms of forceful impressions. Mental raving. These folks aren't mincing words.
Disaster happens. --> Get angry.
That's a normal person's course of action. Then usually there's an apology and someone might need to find the super glue to fix a broken coffee mug ("it was in the junk drawer last I saw it").
It is said "it is OK to be angry but generally not OK to act out of anger." And generally, acting out of anger is a lapse of awareness of our decision making in the heat of the moment.
You might even term it as "temporary insanity which led to a crime of passion." Breaking a coffee mug (especially the one that reads "One Rad Dad") is no crime but it was not anger that broke the mug (this is all hypothetical -- take solace that the mug is securely in the cabinet) but the action that someone took was sourced from anger.
The "crime" was sourced from a decision which came from someone (1) not being prepared for their own emotions and (2) lacking the awareness in the present moment of their decision making capacity.
But quote 1 from Ryan is a quote from a person that is rather far along a path of awareness. So much so, to the point that they can see disaster as opportunity almost immediately. Now, not being affected by disaster at all, not mourning a loss, not empathizing with aggrieved loved ones is not Stoic, it is psychopathic. So again, balance, temperance.
Quote 2 -- "A storm of forceful impressions". I am reminded of when Newman (in 2025 here, I need to note 'from Seinfeld" I guess) explained why postmen sometimes...lose it:
"Because the mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming, there's never a let-up. It's relentless. Every day it piles up more and more and more! And you gotta get it out but the more you get it out the more it keeps coming in. And then the bar code reader breaks and it's Publishers Clearing House day!!!"
But in the quote itself (Epictetus', not Newman's), 'fear of death' is mentioned. I think you can just use 'fear' in general there. If you can limit your fears, then the negative consequences of things happening around you are not unsettling to you. You see things coming at you and you deal with them logically with a sense of calm. Or to Ryan's point, as a source of opportunity.
And "can put reason to flight." -- I had to read that 2-3 times. Considering the various different ways "reason" and "flight" can be used in English, I arrived at "can cause us to abandon logic and make poor decisions."
So a bunch of shit happens and we just lose our shit. Not if you are present. Not if you are aware. Not if you are in control of your emotions. Not if you are mindful of your decision making capacity.
Go Stoicism!